Glitch

by jinnis

Dario stares at the dregs of coffee covering the bottom of his mug. That last sip tasted as bitter as the news from his publisher. His manuscript was rejected with two simple phrases as an explanation: lacking originality, too boring to catch the reader's imagination.

He slams the cup onto his desk. This is meant to be a history book, for god's sake, not a novel, the pride of his career, a masterpiece to secure his comfortable retirement. In a meticulous effort, he collected facts and collated a comprehensive history of the early centuries of the Persian empire. It includes the trials of the rising nation from the heroic ascent of Kyros the Great to the glory days of Darius the third.

With a sigh, Dario leans back, crumpling the rejection letter in his hand. He prided himself in delivering a scientific work of depth beyond the usual online fodder available to students — and was met with blunt rejection. The nights spent transcribing the sources from Herodotus to Plutarch, incorporating the fragments written by Greek historians, the rare manuscripts of early Buddhist monks and Arabian merchants. Only to witness his legacy being torn to shreds and trampled upon by mediocre critics.

His buzzing phone tears him out of his state of angered self-pity. Besso's broad grin dominates the screen.

"Dario, I did it! The prototype works. Are you in for a trial run?"

"Sorry, Bess. You've got to find someone else for fooling around."

His friend's face falls.

"What's wrong, Dar? Can I help?"

For a moment, he is tempted to interrupt the connection. But a distraction might bring relief. Even if he suspects it will only underline the fact his goofy childhood friend is whack.

~ ~ ~

Besso drops by half an hour later, brandishing a bottle of red wine, a box full of electronic equipment, and his laptop.

"Here, to celebrate!"

Reluctantly, Dario takes the bottle and studies the label. It's excellent quality, far above his old buddy's standard booze. Intrigued, he leads the way to the sitting room, where Besso sets down his tech collection.

"What is your prototype supposed to do?"

"You remember the lecture on probability old Artax gave us? Back at uni?"

The infamous professor had been renowned for his eccentric theories and feared for his occasional outbursts. Dario recalls he enjoyed his well-performed lectures, although he couldn't follow the reasoning half the time. Yet he had no clue head-in-the-clouds Besso even bothered to pay attention.

"Bess, that was decades ago. And since when are you into ethical physics?"

His friend spares him a scalding glance while he assembles an array of switches and ominous blue boxes.

"I'm not. But Artax had a point, though I doubt he knew. I added his basic equations into my program for creative writing, and the results are amazing. Hail access to servers all around the world, unlimited storage and computing power. I swear this is going to blow your mind. Here we go."

He plugs in his laptop and powers up the installation.

"Get some glasses and open the bottle, Dar, the Creator needs a few minutes to load."

"Creator?"

"Sure, not too creative as names go. If you have a better suggestion, I'm all ears. What are you waiting for, don't you own glasses anymore?"

Dario shrugs and shuffles to the kitchen. The sink is overloaded with dirty dishes, and he has to rinse two glasses first. Hiring a housekeeper has been on his bucket list since Roxane's tragic death, twelve years ago. But with the prospect of his manuscript being turned down, his bachelor's household will be bound to rely on his own efforts in the foreseeable future. At least the corkscrew is where it belongs.

Back in the sitting room, Besso looks up from his screen and grins like a maniac. He reaches for the bottle opener and gets rid of the cork with a satisfying pop. The wine is a deep purple. Dario enjoys the first sip with closed eyes, pushing futile thoughts of Roxy and regrets aside. The fruity fragrance reminds him of warm autumn days.

"If your program deserves this noble drop, it will become a bestseller."

"No kidding, it's bound to revolutionise writing. Care to help me to straighten out the last glitches? I'll offer a share of five per cent of the proceedings."

Dario frowns, offended. His friend should know he'll support him, anyway. Although a stable income sounds like a dream come true, and Besso seems convinced of his success.

"Bess, are you sure?"

"Okay, I'll raise to ten per cent for old times' sake if you help with the testing. You are the one with the bottomless imagination."

With a snort, Dario swallows another sip, gets hold of a cushion, and sits down beside his partner. He has to rearrange a few of the electronic components to clear a space for his glass on the low table.

"Wish it were so. My editor might prefer a fictional story to my hard and honest research. All right, how can I help?"

"You're the best, Dar. May Mithra's light brighten your days!"

~ ~ ~

The bottle is empty, the sun has set, and Besso snores on the couch. Dario sits cross-legged on the carpet and experiments with his friend's software. He took a while to get the hang of the concept, but now he is intrigued.

The program analyses stories and calculates the probabilities of different outcomes with changing parameters. Besso suggested feeding it with a well-known thriller, pirated from the internet. But Dario insisted to work with copyright-free material. He is in enough trouble as it stands.

They settled on using ancient myths and currently run an analysis of the epic of Gilgamesh. Dario's job is to insert slight alterations and to judge if the new story arc makes sense and might be an improvement.

As the author of an essay on the impact of the early Persian school and the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment, he knows the tale in all its different variations. He can recite the early Sumerian poems and the Akkadian epic so popular with the Babylonian and Assyrian kings.

After trials on a few minor details to check their impact, Dario decides to apply more drastic changes. A smile plays on his lips as he rewrites a line in the first part of the poem. What happens when the wild man Enkidu isn't tamed by a whore but falls in love with a sweet shepherd maiden?

The calculation takes a few minutes, and Dario fetches a glass of water. When he returns, Besso studies the screen.

"I'm not sure what you did, but this looks somewhat boring."

Dario sits down and skims the new version. Bess is right. Enkidu peacefully fathers a dozen sons and several daughters while Gilgamesh continues to oppress the people of Uruk. Finally, the mad king is killed by a servant. The death scene is rather dramatic, and the fight for succession leads to utter chaos and the fall of Uruk, but the story lost its timeless lustre.

"Reads like a history book and is probably far closer to the actual events. Bess, your program has potential. Let's change something else."

He reinserts the whore and adds a line later in the text. Humbaba, the protector of the holy cedar, becomes an undead monster with piercing blue eyes, resurrecting each time the heroes kill him. They wait for the analysis, but the tiny hourglass on the screen keeps turning. Besso frowns.

"That's the glitch I mentioned. The system rejects a random change and gets stuck."

He interrupts the power and restarts his laptop. Dario rubs his temples.

"Zombies seem off limit. Pity, it sounded like an interesting option. Can I run another test with shorter story parts and work my way up to the big picture? Maybe we can isolate the trigger for the glitch."

"Sure, go ahead. Shall I connect your own computer? I have a dinner appointment I'd hate to miss."

Dario shrugs.

"If you guarantee you instal no malware. I'll call you if I make progress."

~ ~ ~

As soon as he is alone, Dario delves back into his tests. To keep track of his progress, he dots down his observations in a notebook, working his way systematically through different options. After a few fruitless experiments, he feels in need of another approach. On a whim, he abandons Gilgamesh and loads a copy of his own manuscript. Now, where to start? Perhaps best with the chapter on Darius the third.

What if the great ruler suffers a fatal accident before anyone knows the insignificant youth will become the legitimate heir to the Persian throne? Or if Bagoas poisons him within years of his coronation, like his predecessors?

Fascinated by the possibilities the program offers and the untold stories unfolding, Dario hardly sleeps. He is back behind the screen at sunrise with a stack of his research notes. Time passes fast while he follows the urge to flesh out details and add new characters into this historical game of chess.

Shall he give in to temptation and create an equal adversary for the greatest king and campaigner in history? Who might be suitable as a potential foe? In the time of Dario's namesake, the Greek were divided into quarrelling city-states. India and the northeastern nomads were uneasy neighbours but hardly posed a serious threat.

He paces up and down in his study. Wasn't there...? Excited, he leaves through a stack of loose sheets until he finds a footnote on a small, unimportant kingdom in northern Greece. King Philip the second lost his heir when the ten-year-old tried to mount a wild horse.

Dario smiles. The boy is cut out to be his unlikely hero. He sits down at his desk, mumbling under his breath.

"This is your lucky day, prince of Macedonia. Let's see, that horse needs a name — we'll call it Bucephalus, the ox-headed one. You'll not only survive your ill-fated adventure but also master that horse by finding out it is afraid. Afraid of — its own shadow."

~ ~ ~

Hours later, Dario still adds detail upon detail, oblivious to the steady hum of his hard-working processor and the sun sinking towards the horizon. A pop-up window with bold cuneiform letters interrupts his workflow.

- Apply changes? -

He stifles a yawn, suddenly aware how late it is and that he hasn't eaten the whole day. His stomach confirms this observation with a low rumble. Dario hits the enter key, his mind drifting to the content of his freezer and the important question of his choices for dinner.

The screen blacks out, and the computer reboots. He frowns, not sure what initiated the process, afraid he is about to lose his work to the recurring glitch. Then his eyes widen in surprise at the unusual writing that fills the screen. It fails to make sense. Is this Greek?

No, the symbols are wrong. He searches his brain, sure he has seen these rounded letters before, the format lacking the order and sleekness of cuneiform paragraphs. Latin? The language was briefly used by the Romans. It disappeared when Xerxes the conqueror sacked their unimportant republic in the year 512 of the Achaemenid calendar.

Dario rubs his eyes, trying to grasp why his computer brings up the forgotten font of a long-dead language. A female voice tears him out of his thoughts.

"Alejandro? Dinner is ready. I made your favourite pizza with anchovies and olives. Please come down."

Suppressed memories of happy days rush Dario's mind. The melodic timbre reminds him of Roxane. But who is Alejandro? He clears his throat, hoping against hope.

"Roxy?"

Soft footfalls on the stairs speed up his heart-rate. Torn between exhilaration and panic, Dario watches the door.

She is even more beautiful than he remembers, despite the grey strands in her dark hair.

"Alex, have you caught a cold? You sound hoarse, dear. This project kept you glued to your desk nonstop for days. I think you need a break — a few slices of pizza and a beer. And perhaps a dessert later?"

Dario shakes his head, trying to absorb the meaning of her words. Her glance wanders to his screen.

"How is your work coming along? The ultimate biography of Alexander the Great, right? Almost finished?"

He stands up and pulls her into a gentle embrace. Her hair smells of lavender, and his mind wanders back to the precious time he enjoyed the privilege of her companionship. It's been more than a decade since he lost her to pneumonia. Surprised she neither disappears into thin air nor resists his intimacy, Dario looks at the screen over her shoulder. For the trained eye of a scholar, the title is readable even in the foreign Latin script.

The Making of Alexander the Great of Macedonia.

As he stares, another pop-up appears.

- Save changes? -

He hesitates, flooded by conflicting waves of doubt and hope. Roxy seems to perceive his insecurity and glances at the screen. With a smile, she reaches out. Her slim finger hovers over the enter key.

"The pizza is getting cold, Alex. You can continue tomorrow. Save?"

"Yes, darling. Tomorrow. Save."

Mesmerised, his eyes are glued to her index with the peach-coloured nail. She touches the key lightly and a soft click seals the fate. His lips brush a kiss onto Roxy's neck before she frees herself and pulls him out of the room, giggling. Without a glance at his screen, he follows his re-found love.

He never even heard of a dish called pizza. But if this new world contains a living, healthy Roxy, he can get used to everything, Latin script, being called Alex, and pizza.